Home Highlights C.I.A. Employees Face New Inquiry Amid Clashes on Detention Program and Their...

C.I.A. Employees Face New Inquiry Amid Clashes on Detention Program and Their Fear Is Bug-contagious

While The NY Times reports C.I.A. Employees Face New Inquiry Amid Clashes on Detention Program, Marquel, TPVs Times correspondent, adds that the Agency bugged Senate Committee because of fears the committee bugged the agency. President remains aloof.

The Senate intelligence committee, charged with overseeing the top secret CIA, has discovered that the Agency has infiltrated the committee from top to bottom. Reads like a spy novel nobody would buy.

Marquel took to this story like a fish to bread crumbs. Spies spying on spies spying on spies. Excellent! He thought. The problem was to find an opening. There were so many spies Marquel could not be certain of any of his usual sources.

The intelligence committee has more aides than any other so it was no problem finding a talkative one. He told a strange story but from all available evidence it’s absolutely true.

“When I went home at night, two cars were following me.” said the aide. “And when I got home there were two cars already parked across the street. That’s eight agents following me, and I just graduated college last year. What could I know that is worth eight agents 24 7? You realize that’s three shifts so that’s a total of 24 agents for little old me.”

“So what did they want from you?” I asked.

“Haven’t a clue,” he said, “but my Senator has sixteen aides and interns and I’ve asked almost all of them and they all told the identical story. So what is that…24 times 16 that’s like…240 plus 144, 384 agents tailing us!”

“And you don’t know what they wanted?” I asked.

“Well, specifically, no. Generally we know they were pissed off that we had discovered a memo that they never gave us.” He said. “But it’s not like there was any spy ring. We are the United States Senate! Nobody could have thought we were going to meet a Chinese spy or anything. Some of my colleagues think they were just trying to harass us.”

“But you don’t think so?” I asked.

“It’s the difference between intent and result. They may have intended to harass me but I loved it!” He exclaimed.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Couple reasons. D.C. is dangerous. Do you know what it would cost to hire this kind of security? Then it’s kind of cool. I go on a date, park, I don’t lock the car. She asks how come. I have two choices each better than the other. I can lie and say I’m a martial arts champ and anybody messes with me is a dead man. But if course nobody’s going to mess with my car with all these agents around . That’s pretty impressive. Or I can just point to the agents and say I have full time security but I can’t say why. That really impresses them. I’m fucking 007!” He was so impressed with himself. I thought I could use it.

“So how did you get this memo from CIA? I heard you cracked their security,” I said.

He leaned into me intimately, whispering, “I’ll tell you if you give me anonymity and I’ll have to explain what it is to show we were right.”

Jackpot! Pothole! I nodded agreement.

“First you have to understand that we had information that torture produced nothing, I mean literally nothing. Very persuasive info.So the CIA commissioned a report. Took four years and millions. We weren’t allowed to see anything unless we traveled to Virginia but they hired an outside firm to do the report. We are the U.S.Senate but only this outside contractor could have unlimited access. And they of course concluded that torture yielded useful intelligence. Does that make you mad?” He asked

“Burning mad” I said.

“Good,” he whispered. “Then I can go on. Well we are the intelligence committee. We’re not complete boobs. We have IT people who do nothing but encryption and decryption. With the info we already have it was easy to break in. Guess what we found?”

“How about,” I asked, since I already was familiar with the basics, “a prior internal report by the CIA that torture yielded zero intelligence.”

“Very good,” he said, “and they never gave it to us and when we told them we had it they acted like we were some sort of foreign spies. We’re the U.S. Senate charged with overseeing them! And they lie and deceive us.”

“Is that it?” I asked.

“Ha! Once they started tailing us and bugging our phones, houses, cars, and pets, it was obvious we had to do more than business as usual. This is absolutely confidential right?” I nodded yes. “Okay, what we did was demote two of the CIA directors and replace them with members of our staff!” He was so excited I thought he might fall off his chair.

“You mean there are two members of the Senate intelligence committee sitting to the right and left of the director and he thinks they are CIA?”

“That’s it!” He laughed, fell off his chair, and continued, “we know what they’re doing before they do!”

Four men approached us. I spilled my coffee as accidentally as I could manage, went into the rest room, and climbed out the window.

The next day I called one of my agent friends at the FBI who put me in touch with a low level CIA intern. The story was so big even he knew the outlines although from his point of view this was a violation of every law imaginable and the intelligence committee deserved retribution. So the tailing and harassment was just.

I asked him, “So is that it?  To harass them for a little while and they’ll learn their lesson?”

He leaned into me intimately and whispered, “there’s more but I need your solemn promise of confidentiality.” I nodded. “What we’ve done deserves a Nobel Prize. We put an agent on the intelligence committee. They think he’s a Senate aide. We know what they’re doing before they do!”

I asked, “is that it? So things can go back to normal?”

“No,” he said, squirming so much from excitement that he, too, fell to the floor. “You know Diane Feinstein,” he asked,  “the head of the Senate committee?”

“I know who she is,” I said.

“No you don’t !” He said. “She’s a double. We found a woman running a bodega in Queens who looks and talks and acts just like her. We switched them! Now we know what Feinstein knows before she does! In fact now she doesn’t know shit!”

“Hmm,” I said, “how long can this go on?”

“Probably forever,” he said.

“Eventually Feinstein will come back,” I assured him.

“Nope, never,” he answered.

“Why?” I asked.

“You know the queen mother of England?” He asked.

I nodded yes.

“Feinstein. That’s Feinstein. She loves it. She’s not coming back. We’ve got the bodega lady as long as we want her.”

I was speechless but it all made a kind of symmetrical sense. “Next you’ll be telling me Obama knows all this but it’s not really Obama.”

“No I won’t,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked, trying to tease him.

“I can’t tell you.”

“What can’t you tell me?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you,” he insisted.

“You can’t tell me what you can’t tell me?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you,” he assured me.

I left. I passed a tv store. A tv in the window showed Obama speaking. I think.

***

Follow Marquel on Twitter @MarquelatTPV and see if he, too, defects. As in becoming defective.

13 COMMENTS

  1. It would be funny had it not been true:
    I asked him, “So is that it? To harass them for a little while and they’ll learn their lesson?”

    He leaned into me intimately and whispered, “there’s more but I need your solemn promise of confidentiality.” I nodded. “What we’ve done deserves a Nobel Prize. We put an agent on the intelligence committee. They think he’s a Senate aide. We know what they’re doing before they do!”

  2. No but thanks for asking. I have to fight with my editor for space. On the internet where space is free! Go figure….

  3. Is it real or not? The Domino Effect? You’re excellent, Marquel.
    “Very good,” he said, “and they never gave it to us and when we told them we had it they acted like we were some sort of foreign spies. We’re the U.S. Senate charged with overseeing them! And they lie and deceive us.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.